


Knitting Whole

by ShiDreamin



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Apocalypsearizine, Aradia Zine Piece, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Gen, Illustrations, Introspection, Multiple Aradias because Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:33:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23636119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShiDreamin/pseuds/ShiDreamin
Summary: To support herself. One of the many, multiple, millions of Aradias running around with the same name. They share one strand of DNA, one color of blood, one birth and one lusus. One mind.“When we die,” Dia whispers, and even so, it echoes between them all, “we die for the Alpha.”That’s not fair, Aradia thinks, her thought and hers alone.
Relationships: Aradia Megido & Aradia Megido
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3
Collections: Zine Pieces





	Knitting Whole

There are an uncountable number of people around Aradia, and yet, the number ticks upward in her mind with every portal opening, every new sound of dialogue. Red cloaked versions of her, metallic versions, undead. There are Aradias she doesn’t know, cannot know, people whose faces turn at her in recognition and people whose faces have been burnt off entirely. She knows, and she doesn’t, but she _does_ , just because.

Why, Aradia thinks, time?

The concept of Alpha and Beta are blurring under the weight of all these timelines falling together, loose strings binding and binding and binding and know she knows, they know, every single wandering holder of time, that this rope is bound to be cut down.

“Are you scared?” It’s her, and not, standing by trolls she (doesn’t) know. It’s Vriska, not hers, who adorns a sea of red, a sparkling gown that cloaks her from horn to feet, glittering in space. She holds Kanaya’s hand, the two smiling at each other, even though there’s red raw marks along Kanaya’s waist, poisoned pinpricks. Aradia, another Aradia, one she’s never met and would never want to, is the one to ask the question, one eye covered by an eyepatch (she doesn’t want to know what’s underneath), and an ugly rip at her lips. There’s blue spirals painted onto her horns.

“No.” Aradia says. It’s a lie, one they all share.

“Oh. Were you the local Alpha?” Something like recognition sparkles in her eyes, eye, the single one staring into her. There’s another Aradia behind her, then another, and another, with broken horns and torn lips and a single troll barely three sweeps old, holding a sword twice her height in her hand.

“No, I’m not.” Anymore. It doesn’t feel like a lie when everyone knows the truth.

“I’ve never lead a timeline,” a confession from another, an Aradia with green lips and pointy fangs, silver necklaces stacked onto her chest. Her hands are wrinkled with scrubbing, guilty scratches and indents leaving darkened rings on her grey skin. She must notice her staring, because then the ruffled sleeves of her top fall over her palms. “You can call me Dia. Nice to meet you!”

Aradia, the first one, the one stepping back to stand by (her) Vriska’s side, laughs.

“We’re going to run out of nicknames. But, sure,” she taps her Kanaya’s hand, “call me AA, I guess.”

“Ari,” Aradia says. She’s never been called that, and she has no real plans to, but it’s a better identity than local Alpha.

“Nice to meet you both! Hey, hey, ho! You think Damara will come?” Dia asks. Aradia doesn’t know who that is, who that should be, and it doesn’t really matter with Dia cheering. “Oh boy! It’d really be a sign of the times, right?”

“Oh, don’t say that,” AA chastises. It is easier, with their names, to differentiate the two from the mass of reddened forms popping out of warps and distortions in time. Aradias that should never meet are meeting, their timelines blending and merging from red tinted slivers in the galaxy to this braided branch, heavy, heavier. Aradia blinks, slow, and they know.

It’s coming.

Dia takes a clean step back, her smile fading into this haunted sliver, hands coming together and summoning her weapon of choice: a barbed whip. She stands, tall, for a moment the alpha Aradia had always aspired to be, confident and steely and _cold_ in the face of danger. In the eyes of death.

AA turns to her, smiling, soft and maternal and sweet, appearing every bit as kind as the “dad” one of the humans speaks of. She brushes her hand along Aradia’s, just a moment, before turning back to her people. Her followers. Undoubtedly the remains of a doomed timeline that she had come from, shattering hopes and dreams and her wings, letting herself plummet into the ground to support the alpha.

To support herself. One of the many, multiple, millions of Aradias running around with the same name. They share one strand of DNA, one color of blood, one birth and one lusus. One mind.

“When we die,” Dia whispers, and even so, it echoes between them all, “we die for the Alpha.”

That’s not fair, Aradia thinks, her thought and hers alone.

It’s _here._

The axe slices cleanly through their right flank, red-tinted lines burned through in an instant as silent prayers turn to screams, yells, cries. The brave ones charge forward with bloodied torsos and broken legs; the scared ones cry without tears, shock trembling their forms as they grope at where their stomachs used to be. Red ropes bind and twist and _pull_ , clean, messy, shattering the comets flung through the galaxy with such startling ease.

“Ari.” AA’s voice trembles as she speaks, even as she smiles at Aradia, lip thin, a rustiness to her stance. Aradia smooths down her hair, messy strands floating in the air, before nodding slow. “Head back down, there’s a tunnel to your left. That’s where the Alpha goes.”

Alpha. Always Alpha. As though she’s done something, anything, worth commending for. Aradia swallows, knows her feet are trembling, knows she cannot fight. Knows she’s never had to, the dirty work done by her predecessors who have died and screamed and cried and died and died _and died and died and—_

“Go.”

She goes.

The planet they’ve gathered on shatters beneath her feet, red vines dyed in rusty blood splitting the rocks, spearing upwards tattered clothes and broken limbs. Aradia bites down a scream, throat dry when a familiar warmth fills her veins, hot, boiling. Alpha, for a moment, a million timeline’s worth of Aradias staring down at her, through her, seeing… what? Their hopes run? Their hopes flee?

Alphas, winners, cowards. In the wake of death, is this what they want?

Their left flank is shattering, hundreds of hopeful timelines snuffed out in a moment, thousands more doomed ones silenced. The sound of yelling, praying, screaming, is a chaotic mix of battle chants and surrendering cries. A building, an entire castle, comes out of someone’s inventory, crashing against the beast and sending him spiraling against the comets, the furious force of nature making itself known.

Aradia feels the Alphas more than she sees them, the crowding heat of past and current and future rulers a sparking flame in the mist of the chaos. They are as varied as the Aradias on the surface, fighting, dying, some with their weapons drawn high and some cowering on the ground, tears and snot and blood pooling on the floor beneath them. Some of them have fought and won by the skin of their teeth, standing tall on a pile of broken trolls. Others have never raised a sword in their life.

“Ari!” She knows, and she doesn’t, the Aradia that waves at her. It, she, a robot with blue “eyes” and their name scrawled out on their chest in green blood, stands. She’s an alpha that’s fought. An alpha that fights, plans to, her hands drenched in more blood than perhaps fifty of the more peaceful timelines combined. She’s warm, burning hot, a force dragging the tunnel temperature to a scorching high.

It takes all of a second for Aradia to know. Her inventory flickers. Her hands shake. She’s sweating, fat beads running down her face, and for once it seems from something other than fear. Something other than uncertain footsteps expecting a dead version of herself across the hall, something more than the constant drifting worry of her place in the timeline being stolen.

For a moment, just this one, the weight of Alpha settles on her shoulders. On hers, and hers, and hers, all of their shoulders together. The weight of a thousand deaths, the weight of a million more. It is so unbelievably heavy.

“My name isn’t Ari,” Aradia whispers.

The robot smiles, as much as a robot can. She smiles back.

It’s a futile fight. Time extends long, long, after this battle, a never-ending stream with no regard for the lives and deaths that occur in its stretch. There will be more evils after this one, and dreamier days after that. There will be wars, revolutions, good people turned bad and bad turned good, a constant black and white world because those alive refuse to see the grays.

She could escape anytime. Open a portal, dodge to a new timeline. A more peaceful one. One where all these problems are resolved, in a time far, far away. In this world, in this time, she has to die. One, tens, hundreds, thousands. Aradias who share one mind, and one trembling hope.

But this is her home. These are her people, her friends. Herself. Trolls she’s grown up with, trolls who haven’t seen her die, who don’t know the pressing weight of time. Trolls who have held her hand and kissed her cheek and humans who laugh with her through the computer monitor. A lusus that loves her. A planet she wants to see bloom.

If she dies, it won’t be for the Alpha. Nor for the Betas. It will be for herself, a vision of her in the distant future, smiling, laughing, dancing along living flowers and living friends and living hopes, an ever brighter future dawning in her favor.

Aradia stands, a spark along her fingers, a warmth coursing through her veins.

It’s her time to fight.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed reading this! 
> 
> Here's the link to my art piece for the zine: [ Aradia! ](https://twitter.com/shidreamin/status/1249781198823600128)
> 
> It was a pleasure to write for apocalypsearizine, run by the same mods for Terezine, and it'll be out sometime soon (the PDF is currently being put together)! I really wanted to dig in and explore the concepts of multiple Aradias, the struggles of time, her own identity when she comes to face with herself. And also, I got to make fanart for my own writings so... fun all around!
> 
> If you enjoyed reading my fics, want to yell about found families, or support me, please check out my twitter [ @Shidreamin ](https://twitter.com/shidreamin/)! I’m more active on there, and you’ll be able to see my zine previews before I post them here, as well as some WIP in the future! I've also recently set up a curious cat and ko-fi, if you'd prefer messaging me anonymously. ^v^


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